Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Life, Death, Christmas

Christmas
was a little death for Jesus. Not a theme you want to highlight in the kids’
pageant, but it’s a conclusion I couldn’t avoid in Wednesday night Bible study as
we discussed some similarities in circumstances surrounding His birth and His
burial.

Jesus
allowed Himself to be a baby, helpless in the hands of His parents, who wrapped
Him tightly in strips of cloth and laid Him in a manger (a feeding-trough bed
for the One who became the bread of life.) At His death, His friends wrapped Him tightly
in strips of cloth and laid Him in a tomb, a cave carved in the rock. Many
believe the stable of His birth was also a cave. One of the gifts the Magi brought
was myrrh. Joseph of Arimathea used many pounds of myrrh and other spices in
Jesus’ grave wrappings.

We
celebrate in December, but if the shepherds were out in the fields, it may well
have been spring, when lambs destined for sacrifice in the temple were born,
the time of the Passover. How fitting that the Lamb of God might have been born
at the same time. When the shepherds, lowly workers, heard that the Savior was
born, they ran all the way to Bethlehem to find Him. What the angels told them
was true! They went home rejoicing. When the disciples heard that Jesus had
risen from the dead, they ran to the tomb. An angel told them that He was no
longer there. Everything He had told them was true! Men who had been in hiding,
beaten and terrified, now became brave, willing to be martyred for their risen
Lord.

Prophecies,
angelic announcements and portents in the sky heralded both His birth and His
death. Each was a pivotal moment in human history, and each saw Jesus moving
from one world to another. We talk about His entering Heaven in glory, but we
don’t talk so much about what it meant for the eternal Son of God, creator of
the universe, second Person of the Trinity, to leave that perfect realm in the
first place. Angels (at the sight of
which, humans are often terrified, or tempted to worship) praised and
honored Him continually, covering their faces in humility. In our realm, people
would call Him crazy and try to push Him over a cliff. In the end, they
crucified Him.

It’s
in Philippians 2, how God Himself took the form of a servant, humbling Himself in
obedience, even to the point of death on the cross. He left honor and power and
prerogatives behind. Omnipotent God became a man. That’s a little death.
Hebrews 10:5 shows us that He knew from the beginning what He faced. “When He
came into the world, He said ‘… a body You have prepared for Me… I have come to
do Your will, O God.’” And human beings would be “sanctified ﻿ ﻿through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” A little death, a
new life. An earth-shaking death, new life for millions. Now that's a gift.

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About Me

Asked at a writer's conference to tell what my gift (assuming I had one) as a writer might look like, I said "a magnifying glass." I look at the details of just about everything and try to get a grip on the world that way. It makes me a good editor, a fairly interesting person to talk to, and sometimes a pain in the neck. Born in Montana to parents from New York City, I grew up in Florida, went to college in Boston. Having worked as a newspaper reporter, gotten married and had four babies, and done some freelance writing and editing, I keep on trying to get to the bottom of things.